The Brookhaven leader., 1887-04-28
TALMAGE'S SERMON.
The Moral Effect of Secret Socie-
ties Disc lssed-
Their Respective Values Indicated by Their
objects-Labor Organizations Com.
mended but Anarchy Condemned
Home the Best Society.


feet Of secret societies.
His text was:
Discover not a secret to auother-Prov.,
xIv.,o.
In other words, secret societies, like in.
dividuals, are good or bad, are the means
of moral health or temporal and eternal
damnation. All good people recognize the
vice of slandering an individual, but
many do not see the sin of slanderirg an
organization.
There are old secret societies in this
and other countries, some of them centu-
ries old, which have been widely de-
nounced as immoral and damaging in
their influence, yet have hundreds of per-
sonal friends who belong to them-friends
who are consecrated to God, pillars in
the church, faithful in all relations of life
examples of virtue and piety. They are
the kind Of friends whom l would have
for my executors if l am so happy az to
leave any thing for my household at the
time Of decease, and they are the men
whom / would have to carry me
out to the last sldep when l am
dead. You can not make me be
lieve that they would belong to bad in
stituhons. They are the men who would
stamp on any thing iniquitous. and
would certainly rather take their testi-
mony in regard to such societies than the
testimony OF those who, having been
sworR in as members, by their assault
upon the society, confess themselves per-
jurers.
One of these secret societies gave for
the relief of the sick in 1873, in this coun-
try, $780, pa. Some of the societies have
poured a very Heaven of sunshine and
benediction into the home of suffering.
Several Of them are founded on fidelity to
good citizenship and the Bible. l have
never taken one of their degrees. They
might give me the gri, thousand times,
and l would not recognize 1t. am ignor-
ant of their passwords, and | must judge
entirely from the outside. But Christ has
given US a rule by which we may judge
not only all individuals, but all societies
secret and open
BY their fruits We shall know them
Bad societies mako bad men. Good &c,
cieties make good men. \ bad ran will
not stay in B good society, y good man
will not Stay in bad society. Then try
all secret societies by two or three rules.
Test the hrst: Their inf uence on home,
" you have a home. That wife soor loses
her influence over her husband who nerv-
ously and foolshly looks upon all evening
absence as an assault on domesticity, Row
are the great enterprises of reform, and
art, and literature, and benefcencc aud
public veal TO DO carried on if every man
is to have his world bounded on one side
by his front doorstep, and on the other
side by his back window, knowing moth
ing hlghcr than his own attic or lower
than his own cellarl That wife who he
comes jealous of her husbands attention
20 art tyr literature or religion or charity
is breaking her own Scepter of Goujugal
power.
l know an instance where wife
though that her husband was giving too
many nights to Christian service to char
liable service, to prayer-Ine etirgs, and to
religiou' convocaticn. She Systematically
decoyed him away Until now he attends no
church, waits upon no charitable institu-
ton, and lie on a rapid way to destruction,
his morals gone, his money gone, and l
fear his soul gone. Let any Christian wife
rejoice when her husband cOnsecrates
evenings to the service of humanity, and
of God, or charity, or art or any thing Gle
waiting.
But let n man sacrifice home life TO Sc
Cret society life, as many do. | can point
out to you a great many names of men
who afe guilty of this sacrilege. They
are as genial as angels at the society
room, and as ugly as sin at home. They
are generous on all subjects cf wine sup
pers, yachts and fast horses. but they
are stingy about the wives dress IS and
the childron's shoes. That man has made
that which might be hcalthful iufu.
ence a usurper of his affections. and he
has married il, and he iS guilty of moral
bigamy Under this process the wife
whatever her features, becomes uninter-
esting and homely. He becomes critical
of her, does not like the dress, does not
like the way she arranges her hair, is
amazed that he ever was so unromantic
as to offer her hand and heart
There are secret societies where mem
bership always involves domestic ship
wreck. Tell ME that a man has Joined a
certain kind, and tell me nothing more
about him for ten years, and l will write
his history II he be still alive. The man
is Wine guzzler, his wife b oxen hearted
or prematurely old, his fortune gone or
reduced and his home mere name IN a
directory. Here are six secular nights in
the week
''What shall do with them.n says the
father and the husband. II Will give four
of these nights to the Improvement ana
entertainment of my family, either at
home or IN good neighborhool. Will de-
vote one to charitable institutions. l will
devote one to my lodge
congratulate You. Here is a man who
saws:
'SUut of the six secular nights of the
week / will devote five to lod ges and clubs
and associations and one to the home,
which night l will spend in scowling like
a March squat, wishing was GU; spend
ing it as have spent the other five
That mans obituary is written. Not
one out of l0,00) that ever gets so far on
the wrong road ever stops. Gradually his
health will fail through late hours, and
through too much stimulaats he will be
frst-ratc prey for erysipe!as and
rheumatism of the heart. The doctor
coming in will at a glance see it is not
only present disease he mast fig 1t, b ut
years of fast living. The clergyman, for
the sake of the feelings Oft family, on
the funeral day, will talk in religious
generalities. The meu who got
his yacht in the eternal rapids
will not be at the obsequies. They have
pressing engagements that day. They
will send flowers to the coffin; will send
their wives TO utter words of sym pathy,
but they will have engagements else
where. They never come. Bring me
mallet and chisel, and l will cut on the
tombstone that mans epitaph:
Blessed are the dead who died in the Lord
NO" you say; "that would not be APP
propriate."'
Lot nae die the death of the righteous, and
let my last end be like his
hot In,